President Obama holds a meeting with African American civil rights leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, February 18. Flanking the President are Attorney General Eric Holder and Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett with Rev. Al Sharpton, president of National Action Network, also attending.

Nothing like having a “hair” day to make me smile – I have an “at home hair care” neighbor – we have had some great hair day parties – just have to keep her from the wine until all the cutting is done 🙂

Thank you for volunteering. I did it once but almost everybody votes in my District and I know most of them. It was fun for me and the judges were very nice. I guess I wasn’t a judge but a monitor. You will have a very long day as a judge.

amen, pwfo. I think we often have to remind ourselves that our politics, however insular, have a ripple effect outside our borders – as I was reminded today, somewhere (here – ?!) re: our environmental laws. Sadly, we’re too often at the mercy of voters like those seen in the Jimmy Kimmel bit. But I won’t be discouraged… 3 more years!!

Just one reason why the media keep trying to force MSNBC to give up on reporting about Christie

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/new-heights-for-the-big-sleazy
“The Governor appears to be using public money to wage it’s own opposition research effort against his purported victims, the people the retaliation was allegedly meted out against. That would be hardball but not that odd if Christie was paying for these lawyers. But it appears the State of New Jersey is. I don’t know why this isn’t generating more of an uproar.”

Am watching Politics Nation tape. They are talking about the Dunn Retrial. Marcia Clark is also thinking it should be tried again on First Degree. My thoughts include what more does his fiancée need to make the decision to ditch him? How she can stand by after listening to his victim talk and kill them all attitude on his phone calls to her is mind numbing?

I’ve never been to Jacksonville, but it’s always referred to as Georgia south.

Only been to Orlando, and they have more than enough intolerant people there, so quadruple that for Jacksonville.

Saw your comment on the early bird thread that said the lone “holdout for self-defense” female was obviously inflexible.

I don’t know how many in TODville have sat on a jury panel, but it’s an illuminating experience to say the least.

The only panel that I was selected for was a truly ridiculous charge of “obstructing justice” — basically a 21 year old kid was moping by a street lamp at 6 pm in Ojai because he had just had an argument with his girlfriend. He was 6’4″ and built like a football player — the cops were both about 5’7″ and they used the maneuver from behind that blocks the carotic (sp) artery on the kid. Because of their height difference, the kid fell to the ground and needed to be taken to the hospital. So what does the Ventura County police do? They file obstruction of justice charges against the moping kid (doing nothing wrong, early in the evening — though it was winter and dark).

Anyway, all but two of us voted to acquit the defendant (our foreman was a retired US Navy Admiral, and an ex-Connecticut State Attorney General was also on the panel). One woman in particular, who seemed perfectly reasonable during juror questioning folded her arms and flatly stated “Police can do no wrong.” The flip side was a woman who could imagine her teenage sons being harassed in such an unreasonable manner and really wanted an acquittal.

So we ended up a hung jury. I’m pretty sure the charges were dropped, that the Sheriffs brought the case against the defendant as a CYA because he ended up in hospital.

My first experience with absolute inflexibility. Which explains the 24% who believe the sun revolves around the earth and that Barack Obama is a Kenyan Muslim socialist.

P.S. This trial was about 25 years ago, and our county was overwhelmingly white, so all jurors were white, except for me, a Japanese-American female. In fact, everyone else in the courtroom and involved in the trial was white.

Caption to the tweeted photo:
Rep. Carly Melin acknowledges that many in law enforcement have legitimate public safety concerns related to medical marijuana. But she says the uncompromising posture of the top law-enforcement officials makes it “pretty obvious that something else is going on here.” (Staff photo: Peter Bartz-Gallagher)

From her Wikipedia bio:
Carly Melin (born August 13, 1985) is a Minnesota politician and member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represents District 6A, which includes portions of the Iron Range in Itasca and St. Louis counties in the northeastern part of the state. She is also an attorney.

What’s happening in Kiev is an epic tragedy. There will be many, many deaths and one of he great cities in the world will be
seriously defaced by fire and bombardments. Putin is behind this violence. He’s an ego maniac and an international thug who’s looking to regain some of Russia’s past glory. He and his Ukrainian puppet will be merciless in inflicting violence. I pray there is some massive international intervention very soon.

After making Mr. 57 stop going on the roof to shovel snow, he finally complied (with each additional snow storm, he is getting more and more tired), I reaped the consequences: water came through the roof over my sewing room, ruining some quilts, lots of fabric and supplies. Of course, Mr. 57 went up there and shoveled – he said it was waist-deep on the roof with an ice dam at the gutter. And that’s only from the last several storms.

he shoveled the roof over our front enclosed sun porch where we store our books that we use for our job. That would have been an incalculable disaster.

Oh 57, flippin’ heck. I was laughing at “After making Mr. 57 stop going on the roof to shovel snow”, but then read the rest. You are having the very worst of weather times, it seems relentless. This has to end soon ….. doesn’t it???

While cleaning through the soggy debris in my sewing room (in my part time life, I teach quilting), I found the scarf I knitted for Mr. 57 last Christmas. We could not find it all season. I remembered taking it out of the car to wash it and it vanished. He steadfastly refused to let me knit him a new one. It was quite a ‘find’ to find it buried in the soggy fabric.

So here’s the good news: I assume that now that I’ve found his winter scarf, that will signal the end of winter. Ya think?

So, so sorry to hear about your catastrophe. But glad that Mr. 57 is OK — how worrying it must be for you to think of your husband on the slanted, icy, slippery roof, shoveling that heavy stuff off your roof.

US scientists need to figure out a way to get water west of the Rockies before areas east of the Rockies are flooded.

The lead news story on the radio this morning was interviews with midwesterners very concerned about flooding — the reporter did say that temps are expected to be above freezing the rest of the week, meaning that the flooding may start as early as this week (!) .

Flooding has got to be worse than feet, yards of snow.

I’ve mentioned before that high temps in coastal Alaska were mostly above freezing last month. Here’s another statistic, so that easterners can commiserate with midwesterners:

We have a good deal of trepidation about the flooding here in the city – we have a lot of problems in my North side Chicago neighborhood, so we’re shoveling troughs through the snow, ice and slush so that we don’t get a deluged basement. It’s a killer, this winter.

I was talking to a friend the other day who lamented that there is no way to get all this excess water to where it’s needed. But by all means, let’s put all of our creative energy into a new iPhone.

57, flooding is everyone’s worry right now. On our walk this morning, we ran into many people desperate to find a place to put the snow so that it would not all melt into their basements. The piles are so high there will be no place for the melted stuff to go except into houses. Plus it’s not only supposed to get above freezing this week, but heavy rain is expected. Time to build an ark. Our county commissioners e-mailed everyone to ask for ideas about what to do with all the snow. I want to put it into tankers and send it all by rail to California.

I’m dividing my time between working in my soggy sewing room and shoveling troughs so that the basement isn’t deluged. We are seriously running out of energy.

Mr. 57 is up on the roof right now chipping away at ice. I would have gone out to the alley to try to dig a trough, but literally, there is an ice rink right outside the garage and there’s no way I can get to the alley. I don’t think our car could get any traction until we clear this mess. And believe me, if there’s an inch of ice, I fall, much less a pond right outside my garage.

This is the unbelievable irony, global. A man who has no compunction about using any kind of violence and suppression against a free people and he’s the hero. You really have to be as crazy as the Mad Hatter to see anything but pure thuggery in this brutal man.

Hello to my beautiful Chips and TOD family. Chips, I hope that your beautiful and precious mother is doing well today. Prayers and her special candle will be lit at 6:00PM my time. My healing space for her between two beautiful mothers in my life. Very special. () Loving prayers going forth.

Also give my grandson, Danny a hug from his granny. I hope he is fine ((((((((Love to my handsome grandson, Danny).

I just want to give a loving expression of healing thought to all in our TOD family who are making great progress with their health situation. I often recall how blessed we all are, but there are times when the thoughts of doubts try to creep into our gentle spaces and whisper discouraging words, so do not yield to those whispers of doubt. Be as strong as your physical strength will allow you all to move with grace, love, appreciation for each moment of goodness and joyfulness to continue to be productive with a thankful heart, and surely your space will be a delightful one. We are all soul loving sisters and brothers with loving prayers, moments of loving meditations, and instruments of love for each other. Our music is composed with the new mercies and loving graces upon our lives as we put forth our goodness tuners to share all of the wonderful sounds of joy and respect with our beautiful president. Our TOD family is one to be so grateful for and to as we journey on with President Obama and his administration.

So sherijr, gobrooklyn, Fred, CarolMay, Vc, Precious Mother of Chips, NCLB, and all of our TOD member, be gentle on your spirits and graceful in your space.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ Loving thoughts and thank you to Chips and all of our brilliant contributors with her}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}HZ

So sad about what’s happening in Kiev. The fight for freedom is a long and painful one in many corners of the world. We can only hope for God to put might on the side of those striving for their right to be free.